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Monday, 30 April 2018

To the north of Thornthwaite
Forest above Whinlatter pass there are five Wainwright's, four of which can be
easily linked together to give a grand days outing.

Our plan was to bag
Graystones (456m), Broom Fell (511m), Lords Seat (552m) and Barf (468m).This would, with only a little backtracking
to take in Barf, give us our four Wainwright's.

Parking just before Darling
How Farm we made our way up through Darling How plantation.This involved a rather circuitous route, but
it did at least bring us out of the forest not too far from the summit of
Graystones.

Moira just above the forest and not far from the summit of Graystones

Once out of the forest it
was a very steep pull alongside an old wall before the ground flattened out
just before the summit area.

The summit area has 2 high points but this one was the better viewpoint.

We took in both tops before
dropping down to Widow Hause.Here we
had a quick break before heading up onto the summit of Broom Fell.

The summit of Broom Fell. There is also a shelter wall just to the left of the cairn

After another quick break we
made our way over easy if rather boggy ground onto Lords Seat.

Once on top we
had good views over to Whinlatter and Brown How (525m) on the opposite side of the
valley.From here we thought we could
work out a possible high route across to it via Tarbarrel Moss.We have numerous single Wainwright's left to
do, so grabbing Whinlatter today would save us a single hill outing.Plus it looked like it would create a great
circular route, providing of course we could find a way through the trees.

The view south over towards Whinlatter and Brown How with Grisedale Pike and Ladyside Pike beyond. We thought we could see a break in the trees running onto the Moss just left of centre.

Convinced we could see a way
through, we now turned our backs to our planned route and instead headed in
the opposite direction to bag Barf.

Barf (lower right) and the Skiddaw Range from the summit of Lords Top

Looking back towards Lords Seat from Barf

On the summit of Barf a
heavy hail shower caught us unawares by sneakily using Skiddaw for cover.

Skiddaw and Bassenthwaite Lake from the Summit of Barf

As a result we didn't hang around for long
before the hail chased us back over to Lords Seat, where we avoided the worst of
it by heading into the trees.

The going after this became
a little confused when we found signs that told us we could not use the
Tarbarrel Moss path.Unsure of where we
could go we dropped down into the forest to meet with the main forestry road.Here signs told us we could go no
further.Fortunately, next to a
mountain bikes only track, Moira spotted a vague path heading through the
trees.I was far from convinced, but
after a steep uphill section we broke out of the trees onto Tarbarrel Moss
itself.From here we could see a vague
path heading across the moss to meet with the main path leading onto
Whinlatter.

In the Lakes the word Moss
on a map tends to mean bog, so by the time we reached the main path leading up
from the Whinlatter visitor centre I had wet feet. I really must get some new
boots.

The view south from Whinlatter Top. The weather by now was rather dull with frequent rain and hail showers.

Next we continued along the ridge to Brown How.This is a great viewpoint, but due to its forested lower slopes
it was difficult to work out how we could get down.

Brown How Summit.

After a false start we
descended diagonally over some very rough and pathless steep ground towards
Willybrag Gill.Here we followed the
forest edge east to reach the boundary wall coming down from Whinlatter Top.
This was then followed down more steep ground until we hit the main forest road
through Aiken Plantation.After this it
was a straightforward walk back to our start point.

That's 113 Wainwright's
completed now.Hopefully the next trip
should take us below the hundred to do mark.

Sunday, 22 April 2018

I have walked the ridge between Red Pike and High Stile
several times, but we weren't sure if Moira had, so we headed over on what was
to be the hottest day of the year so far.

An early start from home saw us wandering along the shore of
Buttermere just before 8.00am.Despite
the blue skies it was still cool and the fields around the lake were white with
frost.

By the time we reached the end of the lake and the path
leading up to Red Pike the sun had cleared Fleetwith Pike at the head of the
valley and the ground gently steamed in the heat.

It was a steep pull up through the wood and onto the fell
proper making it hot work.

Buttermere with the mountains of Whiteless Pike of Grasmoor beyond

We had a
short break to cool off next to Blaeberry Tarn before heading up onto the Dodd
(641m) just to the north east of Red Pike.

Bleaberry Tarn with Red Pike ahead.

While not a Wainwright its situation provided good views along the
valley over Crummock Water and out to the coast.It was also perfect for a quiet break, as everyone else seemed to
be heading directly up to Red Pike.

Crummock Water from Dodd. From here we could clearly see the Solway Firth and the hills of Dumfries and Galloway on the horizon

Eventually we dragged ourselves away and made our way onto
Red Pike.It's quite a steep pull onto
the summit, but on the way we met up with a young couple from Germany and
Holland and spent so much time chatting we hardly noticed the steepness.

The view from Red Pike over Crummock Water

A fairly gentle wander over close cropped turf and then up a
rocky path onto High Stile was next. Below we could see out route of Ascent via Bleaberry Tarn.

Bleaberry Tarn and Buttermere village below.

The view back towards Red Pike from the start of the ascent onto High Stile

Here we had another break and spent a pleasant 15 minutes or so chatting
to another couple, this time from Argentina.The arrival of another group with eastern European accents gave the walk
something of an international flavour.

Great views from near the top of High Stile

By the time we reached High Crag we were really feeling the
heat.Hardly surprising given the fact
the temperature was in the 20's C I suppose.

High Crag Summit

This was the busiest summit of the walk with people sitting
on rocks, eating, chatting, photographing and generally enjoying sun.Wandering around looking for good photo
viewpoints I even spotted one couple laid out fast a sleep.I prefer my summits a lot quieter than this,
but as such great weather days are fairly rare, we made the best of it and had
another leisurely break ourselves.In
some ways it was a bad idea because we felt really tired and stiff once we set
off again. The sun had also given me a headache.

The thought of an ice cream
down at Gatesgarth Farm, however spurred us on.

The track down and the anticipation of an ice cream from the farm below

Monday, 16 April 2018

In contrast to our last trip to these fells where we did The
Knott, Great Sca Fell and Coomb Height in the snow, this walk had a definite
spring like quality.So much so we were
warmed by the sun and serenaded by Skylarks most of the way around.

Parking at Longlands we had a pleasant if occasionally boggy
walk up to Trusmadoor.From here it was
a steepish climb up onto Great Cockup.To start with the skies were uniform grey, but once on the summit a few
breaks began to show through the murk.

The summit of Great Cockup with Skiddaw beyond.

Rather
than bag the summit and charge off, we also visited the Western top before
retracing our steps to Trusmadoor. Here we had a nice chat to an elderly chap who had completed the Wainwright's some time ago and was now revisiting some.

From here we made a short steep ascent to Meal Fell, which
had a stone shelter and multitude of small cairns marking each and every
high point.

Shelter on Meal Fell

Skiddaw from Meal Fell

Longlands Fell from Meal Fell

Great Sca Fell (main summit and northern top) from Meal Fell

Having visited them all we
headed up to Great Sca Fell, but as we had already been on the summit a couple
of weeks earlier, we made our way up to the col between the main summit and northern top.

The north top of Great Sca Fell

M checking we were where we thought we were

From here it was easy walking to Brae Fell where we sat in
the sun for a well-earned break and the scoffing of egg sarnies.This is the first warm weather we have felt
for months and after our sandwiches and coffee it was tempting to laze away an
hour.

Brae Fell and the view North.

That said the ground was a bit too wet for laying around so
we made our way back towards Great Sca Fell for a couple of hundred metres
before striking off towards Lowthwaite Fell.While not a Wainwright it is a pleasant route leading to Longlands Fell,
our final Wainwright of the day.

Binsey and Over Water from Longlands Fell

These rounded hills mark the boundary between the lakes and the lowlands stretching off towards Scotland and despite the haze we could still pick out the Solway Firth and the Dumfries and Galloway hills beyond. After this it was an easy stroll down to
the Cumbria Way and then back along the track to our start point.

That's 105 of Wainwright's of 214 completed.Three or four trips should take us below the
100 left to do mark if all goes to plan.

Monday, 2 April 2018

To the north of Skiddaw are the Uldale and Caldbeck
fells.With their rounded tops they are
perhaps more reminiscent of the Pennines than the Lake District.Like the Pennines they are also quieter,
making them an ideal choice for a last minute Easter Sunday wander with our
pals Graham and Sandra.We didn't
really have a plan for ticking off hills other than to head out and enjoy a
walk.If we could pick up a couple of
Wainwright tops for Moira and I then that would be a bonus.

From the parking we made our way up Grainsgill beck to reach
the snowline, which started somewhere around the 400m contour.The ground however wasn't frozen underneath
the snow, making it a rather boggy walk up to the wind scoured cairn marking the
summit of Knott (710m).

The summit of Knott - a rather windy cold place to be on an Easter Sunday in early spring, but the views were wonderful

Rime ice feathers on the summit cairn

From Knott we made our
way across to Great Sca Fell. At 651m this meant losing a few contours in the process and re-climbing them on the way back.Once at the summit cairn we debated about continuing on to
Brae Fell, but in the end decided to leave it for another day and head back up and over Knott to descend via Coomb Height.

Coomb Height (627m) incidentally is not one of Wainwrights tops and is really only a continuation of the broad ridge leading east from Knott. It does make a nice descent route with some great views south across to Blencathra
and then west over Great Calva to Skiddaw.

A small cairn marks the top of Coomb Height. The northern slopes of Blencathra beyond

Great Calva with Skiddaw beyond

That's 101 Wainwrights
completed.The next target is to get
below the halfway mark, so that's another 7 to do in the next few weeks.

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

In need of a leg stretch,
but only having a few hours spare on Sunday, we decided to head over to the
Lakes and bag a couple of the lower Wainwright's that sit on the eastern side of
Ullswater.

One of the reasons we
decided to make a concerted effort to complete the Wainwright's was the idea
that a bit of peak bagging would take us onto hills we would probably not have
bothered with.Hallin Fell and Steel
Knotts (Pikeawassa) are a case in point in that they are pretty small hills at
only (338m) and (432m) respectively.Given our limited time window, we would probably not have given them a
second thought and stayed local instead.Fortunately taken together they not only made for a pleasant morning's
outing, they were both cracking viewpoints as well.

Parking below Hallin Fell
near the church we headed along past Lanty's Tarn on the eastern side of Steel
Knotts, where just as the sun came out, we had some grand views of the Nab, and
the valleys of Bannerdale and Ramps Gill either side.

Ramps Gill (L) The Nab (centre) and Bannerdale (R)

At Nettlehowe crag we struck
directly up the hillside for a short distance and soon found ourselves on the broad ridge linking Steel Knotts and Gowk Hill. From here it was a short steep pull onto the little rocky summit marked Pikeawassa on the map.

Pikeawassa

Here we had a laze around
and a bite to eat in the warm spring sunshine before heading north towards the Birkie Knott path.

Some grand views on the way along the broad ridge of Steel Knotts

On the way we met up with
mountain dog Bingley, who along with his human companions Roma and Philip were
also doing a bit of Wainwright peak bagging.

Dropping down from Birkie
Knott we were surprised to see around 60 people ascending and descending Hallin
Fell, with perhaps the same number on the path leading to it.

Reaching the foot of the
fell, we found out this was some kind of challenge event.

To be honest with those
numbers of people around we normally wouldn't have bothered heading up, but as
we were only 20 minutes from the top and keen to tick it, we dumped most of our
kit in the car and joined the throng.While it was not a race people were either running, or speed walking up
the hill, so we joined in the fun and soon found ourselves on the top.

Monday, 12 March 2018

After a week of great
weather in the Lakes, friends Graham and Sandra plus Moira and I, decided to head over there in the vans for the weekend.We parked up on the campsite at
Sykeside and almost immediately it started to rain, and it did so for most of
the next 24 hours.

It seemed pointless to head
for the higher hills, so we chose to grab a Wainwright just above the village
of Patterdale.At only 1,421ft (433m)
Arnison Crag is a diminutive little hill, but it provides some wonderful views
over the head of Ullswater, or at least it should if it's not raining.It also had the advantage of a pub at the
bottom and another back at our campsite.If done from Patterdale it only takes 50 mins, but we planned to make a
day of it and walk from our campsite at Sykeside.

Setting off in the rain is
never fun, but as we reached Brotherswater we could at least console ourselves
with some rather atmospheric views.

I have now got my walking companions trained to spot potential photos.Sandra spotted this zig-zag pattern reflected in the lake .

Moving on I grabbed a few
more shots of the mist and clouds

It was hoods up most of the
way, until we reached Patterdale where a brief lull in the rain tricked us into
removing our waterproofs.Five minutes
later they were back on and stayed on for the rest of the walk.

We took the path on the left
just before the White Lion Inn and after contouring through a little wood
struck off up the hill following a drystone wall.I wasn't sure where the summit was and the 1:50,000 map simply
had Arnison Crag written large over an area several kilometres square, so we just
plodded up hoping to spot likely tops in the vicinity.As the clag became thicker this proved impossible
and we initially missed the path where it branched off to the top.Instead we found ourselves on a little
craggy hummock surrounded by lots of other little craggy hummocks about 200m
away from the main top. After getting out a 1:25,000 map to check properly we wandered back the way we had come and easily found the top. Unfortunately there were no views to be had at all.With the patter of rain on our hoods we only stopped long enough
for a coffee and a bite to eat, before deciding the pub would be a much nicer
place to be.

Near Oxford crags a
brief window in the clouds gave us a rather atmospheric view over Patterdale towards the head of Ullswater.

The head of Ullswater from Oxford Crag

A pint of Wainwright's (what else) provided the enthusiasm for the walk back to the campsite.

Quite an enjoyable wee hill really, and one we probably would not have bothered with had it not been on Wainwrights list. In fact I might even head back on a nicer day given the potential for some decent shots when the light is better.

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

I knew I had been to the
summits of two of these, Loadpot Hill and Arthur's Pike, but Moira hadn't so we
devised a bit of a round that involved an out and back from Loadpot Hill to
Wether Hill, before picking up Bonscale Pike and Arthur's Pike on the way
back.

From the parking at Roe Head
we made our way along the rather boggy High Street route onto Barton Fell. On the way we visited The Cockpit stone
circle and then headed across the moor to get back onto main path again. In between I somehow ended up thigh deep in
a boggy hole. This meant a wet foot and
leg almost from the start. However some
wonderful blue skies and far reaching views meant we both still had a spring in
our step and we soon found ourselves above the snowline.

Stone marker cairn at the side of the High Street path

The weather at this point was pretty atmospheric with bands of crespucular rays raking the ground between us and the distant pennines. Occasionally bands of snow also passed by, but fortunately they were well to the east.

Bypassing Arthur's Pike to
pick up on the way back we plodded up to our first summit of the day, Loadpot
Hill.

The sky looked a bit threatening as we reached the summit of Loadpot Hill

Helvellyn range from the summit

Making our way over to
Wether Hill was warm work in the sun and on arriving at the tiny summit cairn,
we experienced a bit of a peak baggers nightmare in that the ground a couple of
hundred metres away looked a bit higher.
Not wishing to miss the true summit we headed off to make sure. From here the place we had come from looked
about the same, but the GPS suggested it was higher. Now I remember why I never really got into peak bagging, it's a
bloody nightmare. Cairns aren't always
just on the true summit and even the fairly reliable trig point is sometimes on
a subsidiary top rather than the true summit, (Burnhope Seat in the Pennines
springs to mind as an example of that confusion).

Fed up with wandering around
high spots, we returned to the original cairn and declared Wether Hill summit
achieved**.

Some spectacular views from Wether Hill across the valley towards the Helvellyn range

It was a bit of a slog back
onto Loadpot Hill, so we stopped off at a little walled shelter just below the
summit for a break. By the time we got
going again a cold breeze had got up, which stung our ears as it chased us back
across the top and down to the path leading to Bonscale Pike. The lower elevation meant it was less windy
here and walking along the edge was really pleasant. Here the ground dropped away down to Ullswater, giving us some
great views of the Helvellyn range and Blencathra to the northwest .
Set above the vivid green fields surrounding the lake the whole range
looked more alpine than Lakeland.

Ullswater with Blencathra beyond from Bonscale Pike

Time was getting on so we
only stopped long enough at the cairn to grab a few pics, before descending to
the ruined building at Swarth Beck. By
now we were feeling the miles and the final pull out of the beck and up onto
Arthur's Pike was rather taxing on the legs.
Especially so as my right foot, which had been encased in a soaking wet
sock all day had now developed a blister under the big toe. On the top, and determined
not to just bag peaks and charge off, we had a break and grabbed a few
photos.

Still smiling on the last top - Arthur's Seat.

The descent down to the car
was straightforward, if a bit of a hobble at times, and by the time we arrived
back we rather lacked the spring in our step we had when we set off. Hardly surprising I suppose after an 18.5km snowy walk - it was great fun though.

** Wainwright's 214 tops are
subjective and are simply tops he chose to include in his books, and as such
they are not each and every mountain summit, or top in the Lake District. There are other lists for bagging a few of
those Birkett's Hewitt's, Nuttall's and Marilyn's for example.

About David

This blog is to share some of my outdoor experiences from the dark side of the lens.
On here you will find a mix of images from my personal and commercial image collections, as well as articles, gear reviews, news and general outdoor related content. My intention is simply to highlight the beauty and diversity of the natural world and to attempt to portray a little of what it means to me.
If you would like to see more of my work please visit my photography website: http://www.bluestoneimages.com/